Juno News - Andrew Lawton talks 'No Hijab Day' with organizer Yasmine Mohammed

00:00:00.000 this is andrew lawton with true north here for another true north interview this time in

00:00:10.700 conversation with a very brave and courageous woman that i hope you're familiar with if not

00:00:16.140 you very soon will be and that's yasmin muhammad she is the founder of free hearts free minds

00:00:22.180 and also the woman behind confessions of an ex-muslim yasmin thank you so much for taking

00:00:28.120 the time to speak today really appreciate it thank you for having me andrew now this is a day

00:00:32.700 on which you've been very vocal and not without controversy and that is for some people world

00:00:38.740 hijab day but for you a very different occasion that you're marking and that's no hijab day and 0.95

00:00:44.860 i was wondering if you could first off tell me why this is something that you've decided to champion

00:00:50.160 sure well um i just heard of no of world hijab day three years ago so not last year but the year

00:00:59.360 before was the first time i'd ever heard of world hijab day and i realized that it was a day where 0.65

00:01:04.900 muslim women set up booths in 140 different countries around the world so who knows how 1.00

00:01:10.720 many booths in every country where they encourage non-muslim women to wear the hijab for a day

00:01:17.900 and when i first heard about this happening and i was seeing pictures on social media and videos of

00:01:23.420 of free women choosing to put this on their heads i just was floored i could not believe the confusion

00:01:34.780 and the betrayal and i just ended up with a migraine and spent the day in bed and

00:01:41.020 the next year so last year i decided to fight back and so instead of encouraging non-muslim women 0.97

00:01:51.100 to wear the hijab what we should be doing is talking about how this hijab is affecting so many hundreds of 0.89

00:01:59.040 thousands of women across the globe we should need to talk about how so many women are forced into 1.00

00:02:03.700 wearing this hijab whether it's by their governments their societies at large like they can't go to school 1.00

00:02:09.520 unless they're wearing a hijab in some countries or whether it's by their families that can abuse

00:02:15.540 them and sometimes even kill them here in canada we had a 16 year old girl that was killed in

00:02:20.960 mississauga ontario because she refused to wear the hijab so that's what we need to be talking about

00:02:26.480 we need to be talking about these women that are being forced to wear this hijab we need to be talking 0.79

00:02:32.900 about the women in iran that are taking off their hijabs and swaying them on sticks silently 0.92

00:02:38.140 in protest and those women getting thrown in prison for sometimes upwards of 20 years in prison 0.84

00:02:45.900 for removing the hijab so that's the real problem that's what we need to be addressing and so i flipped

00:02:52.300 it around and on their world hijab day i said you know what this is no hijab day and i took off a hijab 0.55

00:02:59.340 and i burned it and i said this is in solidarity with all the women across the world that would love

00:03:05.640 to do this that would love to be free from hijab and since then the social media campaigns that 1.00

00:03:12.700 have been happening um not just from iran and from other countries that had already been fighting

00:03:18.700 against the hijab for a long time but places like saudi arabia for the first time we saw a hashtag

00:03:24.600 called burn the naqab where women were were removing the veil off of their face and burning it and posting 0.57

00:03:30.940 those videos online and another hashtag that said the naqab is under my foot which in arab culture for

00:03:38.760 something to be under your foot is incredibly degrading and they would take pictures of this

00:03:43.940 with their foot on top of it and um it was really heartening for me to see all of that and so when no

00:03:52.640 hijab day rolled around again this year i was hoping for a lot more support but i really was

00:03:59.320 not expecting i was so surprised to see the hundreds like the thousands of posts of women from all over

00:04:08.220 the world women from turkey that are posting pictures of themselves when they were wearing hijab and

00:04:14.040 then today when they're not women that are talking about they're being forced to wear it they're only

00:04:19.400 wearing it because they're they fear that their families will kill them other women talking about 0.99

00:04:24.000 i'm only wearing it because i have to otherwise i wouldn't even be able to go to school different

00:04:29.360 reasons for why they're being forced to wear it but you know for these women to speak up and to tell 1.00

00:04:35.480 their truth is incredibly brave because even for me here in canada when i removed the hijab 0.87

00:04:41.600 my mother threatened to kill me and you know in the united kingdom there's a there's a um a model

00:04:50.480 there named dina tokyo she's a modesty model so she modeled with the hijab for many years and now

00:04:56.360 she's decided to decided to take off the hijab and the backlash that she's receiving is just insane

00:05:03.160 she has a video where she just does nothing but read all of the hate and that video is almost an hour

00:05:08.940 long so these and these are in western free countries so you can just imagine when i talk

00:05:14.640 about these women posting these pictures and videos from places like iran and saudi arabia and

00:05:19.780 turkey and you know muslim majority countries it is phenomenally brave of them to do that but the

00:05:26.520 reason why they're and you have to imagine too like the very few women that do speak up how many women 1.00

00:05:31.580 are behind them that would love to do the same but are not willing to take such a huge risk so

00:05:38.180 for no hijab day long story short i'd really like to support those women and i really wanted to

00:05:45.080 highlight their bravery and i'm really happy to see that uh that that's happening now a lot of the

00:05:52.080 women that i've spoken to who wear hijabs especially in a western context not a global context where

00:05:57.840 as you know you have all of these countries where it's legislated either directly or indirectly but

00:06:02.960 women that i've encountered in north america will say it is a choice and it's empowering to wear it

00:06:08.140 and in some cases they're actually very offended by the immodesty of a lot of western dress does your

00:06:14.940 movement alienate them women for whom it is a choice who women who like it who believe it is a positive

00:06:21.380 expression of their faith well those women that feel that way are very lucky to be living in secular free

00:06:28.460 countries that allow them to express their feelings that allow them to wear whatever they want to wear

00:06:35.520 in order to feel you know closer to their faith or for whatever reason so my concern isn't about women

00:06:42.520 that are already in free countries that are able to wear what they want before they walk out the door

00:06:47.480 in the morning my concern is for all the women that are unable to wear what they want and that do not have

00:06:54.420 that choice and like i mentioned it's not only in muslim majority countries that's i have women 1.00

00:07:01.040 posting pictures from australia and from canada and from france and from the u.s like i gave you the

00:07:07.420 example of me here in canada and axa parvez the 16 year old girl here in canada as well so these are not

00:07:14.320 ideas that have borders these are not issues that are exclusive to muslim majority countries so sure there can be

00:07:22.360 women that feel like they want to wear the hijab whether they are here or there and there are also

00:07:27.440 women that feel they do not want to wear the hijab whether they're here whether they are there but the

00:07:32.620 difference being that women who do not want to wear the hijab are not getting any support they're not 0.99

00:07:40.160 the ones that are getting you know 140 countries supporting them by having a a world hijab day right so

00:07:47.520 this is what i'm trying to do is i'm trying to address this problem because women wearing hijab in 1.00

00:07:54.160 western countries is not a problem that's already there why are we talking about it why why does there

00:08:00.560 need to be a protest about something that is already a non-issue we have people wearing turbans we have

00:08:06.440 people wearing um kippahs we have people wearing anything that they want to on their heads to express

00:08:12.100 their faith that's not a problem in any of these countries so why is it an issue the issue is when

00:08:18.260 women can't wear what they want yeah and that's something that i found when i first learned of world 1.00

00:08:24.380 hijab day to be really absurd because let's assume for a moment that it is a religious garment and i know 0.98

00:08:30.360 that that in and of itself is not something for which there's unanimous agreement but a religious

00:08:35.200 garment that means it's only a value to people who are of that religion and i would never as a

00:08:41.560 christian say okay it's everyone wear a cross day you're jewish you're muslim you're atheist i don't 0.88

00:08:45.740 care put on a cross and my jewish friends would never say to me oh you got to wear a yarmulke today

00:08:50.100 in solidarity or a turban or anything like that and that in and of itself strikes me that the hijab

00:08:57.160 in some senses has become a lot more of a political discussion than a religious discussion for

00:09:03.780 some of these people and i wonder if that's a new phenomenon i think it absolutely has become a

00:09:10.440 political statement to wear the hijab and to your point of you know you're not going around 0.85

00:09:15.900 encouraging people to wear you know a crucifix or anything like that but when they were encouraged

00:09:21.660 there was one university where they were trying to encourage the girls to wear hijab and one of the

00:09:27.840 girls said no i don't want to and they in fact tried to get her expelled and they said that she was 0.96

00:09:34.700 islamophobic because she refused to wear the hijab so that's how they treat a non-muslim woman who 1.00

00:09:40.340 doesn't want to wear a hijab just imagine a fellow muslim woman who doesn't want to wear the hijab so 1.00

00:09:45.580 yeah it is quite presumptuous and odd for them to go around essentially bullying people into wearing

00:09:51.040 their garment that represents their religion like why are you forcing that upon other people

00:09:57.740 and yeah you're right it has been become political you know for them to identify that

00:10:04.620 student as islamophobic you know and for them to now capitalize on how that word is being used

00:10:12.160 in order to suppress any kind of criticism of the of the islamic religion or in this case to suppress

00:10:19.020 the fact that she doesn't want to celebrate the you know tools of the the islamic religion 0.99

00:10:24.680 um i think that it's a definite reaction to trump so there's that that whole anti-trump group which is

00:10:34.880 why you would see the hijab in the liberal women's march i mean a hijab should be nowhere near a liberal 1.00

00:10:41.400 women's march it has nothing to do with liberty it is the opposite of feminism it was incredibly weird

00:10:46.980 to see it there but the reason why it was there was because that trump was essentially an anti-trump rally

00:10:53.140 and trump had the so-called muslim ban and so people that hate trump will just decide that they're going

00:10:59.760 to support um islam and and the religion that you know that where muslims the countries where muslims

00:11:06.880 come from and that's so confusing because those people will actually even say positive things about

00:11:15.240 iran because trump hates iran so they they are just you know in this very short-sighted reactionary

00:11:26.460 anti-trump thing where they realize anything that he says anything positive about they hate

00:11:32.200 and anything that he says anything negative about they love without using their brains so what ends up

00:11:38.900 happening here is when they're supporting the hijab they end up supporting modesty culture i mean people 0.89

00:11:46.840 who are huge feminists you know like you've got um alicia keys or you know influential people like 1.00

00:11:56.220 miley cyrus celebrating the fact that barbie is wearing a hijab now like this is the same woman that

00:12:02.360 talks about free the nipple and is going on about women's freedom and feminism is like every second word 1.00

00:12:08.680 out of her mouth very vehemently condemn evangelical modesty culture or christian modesty culture and

00:12:15.180 that's that so it's not even where you can say it's a religious freedom discussion for these people

00:12:20.000 absolutely you're absolutely correct so when it comes to christians even practicing their faith in

00:12:27.580 the most benign ways they'll get a extreme reaction from this liberal or this left side of the political

00:12:36.480 sphere but then muslims practicing their religion in it in a quite a aggressive obnoxious way will get 1.00

00:12:45.320 them to be celebrating that so yeah you're right it's not about religious freedom it's specifically

00:12:51.680 there's there's an incredible difference between so one of my friends faisal mutar gives this

00:12:58.220 description this example all the time where he talks about he was speaking to somebody from

00:13:03.360 uh a left-leaning university one time and he said yeah a friend of mine is homophobic he thinks that 0.96

00:13:11.420 um most he thinks that gay people should be killed and he thinks that anybody who leaves their religion 0.92

00:13:18.360 should be killed and he started listing out all of these things and the person just assumed he's like 1.00

00:13:23.400 oh yeah that's that must be like a disgusting republican far right and he's like no actually it's a 0.99

00:13:28.860 muslim and then they were like oh sorry so that's that's a problem you know like if we're gonna 1.00

00:13:34.820 identify hate and if we're gonna identify issues that need to be addressed then regardless of the skin

00:13:43.560 color or the ethnicity of the actor or of the person you know causing these actions we need to those

00:13:52.840 actions do not change the judgment based on those actions being good or bad right or wrong morally

00:13:57.740 right or wrong does not change based on who the perpetrator is that's irrelevant

00:14:02.660 so on this day i just want to make sure people understand where you're coming from here this isn't

00:14:09.660 about condemning the people that do choose this for whatever reason you're condemning the people

00:14:14.140 that are either sitting by idly and glorifying something that in some cases is forced and more

00:14:20.640 importantly the people that are doing this forcing and i guess is there a level of optimism you have

00:14:25.680 that there is going to be any change especially in these other countries where women's rights are

00:14:31.380 are not even remotely on the front burner of political discourse i don't think that i'm going

00:14:36.960 to see any change in those countries in my lifetime i'm the changes that i've seen already are way more

00:14:42.900 than i expected to see so hopefully i could be wrong on that front but i'm a canadian and my daughters

00:14:48.520 are canadian and i live in canada and my biggest concern are here people here in the west and also

00:14:55.220 because i identify with liberal feminists that's who i consider myself and so when i see people that i 1.00

00:15:03.800 that are supposedly standing up for the same things that i believe in so confused i feel like it's my duty to

00:15:13.740 communicate to them exactly how wrong they are being right now you know i don't think that it's coming

00:15:21.860 from a place of um i don't think it's coming from a from an a place of animosity regression or anything

00:15:31.640 like that i think it's coming from ignorance so i think that canadians in general people in the west in

00:15:38.700 general want to be inclusive they want to be supportive they want to be welcoming and so they're

00:15:45.440 just confused with how they're they're doing that so instead of just saying yes we support people to

00:15:54.060 practice their religions in any way they want which is that which is fine but then we need to have a stop 0.99

00:16:01.060 sign we say yeah you can practice your religion however you want in your mosques or in your churches

00:16:06.700 or in your synagogues or in your temples but not in public schools not in the public sphere do you

00:16:13.040 know what i mean like there needs to be limits to that so we need to also have those limits when we're

00:16:19.420 talking about hijab too right like we can say yes that's fine everybody should be able to wear the

00:16:27.960 hijab however they want that's fantastic we celebrate that but then we also need to be talking about the

00:16:35.280 opposite side of that coin too which is there are a lot of women that don't want to wear the hijab 1.00

00:16:39.780 and that's what this day is addressing joining me is yasmin mohammed founder of free hearts free minds

00:16:46.880 and of course champion in this context of no hijab day yasmin thank you so much for your time really

00:16:52.320 appreciate it thanks andrew

00:16:54.080 you

Juno News - February 01, 2019

Andrew Lawton talks 'No Hijab Day' with organizer Yasmine Mohammed

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